Letters to the Editor: January 30-February 5, 2020

The Editor:

Winston Churchill once remarked, “Democracy is the worst form of government – right after all the other forms of government.”

At this moment in history, both of our major political parties and both of our houses of Congress may be illustrating his observation.

Ken Ely

Blaine

The Editor and the city of Blaine:

In celebration of my 25 years in business in Blaine, I would like to offer the city a gesture of hope, promise and a better future in town by gifting the city a beautiful four-foot-tall Ponderosa tree for the Martin Street parklet.

My youngest little brother and I took a road trip in the summer of 2012 to celebrate my surviving a heart attack that I had in April of that year, to the Winthrop area.

We went hiking up in the hills, and on the return got this little four-foot-tall tree, found among a dug-up area!

We planted it outside my place and it seems to like it here.

Now four feet tall and growing, it needs a new home, as in a few years it will be 40 feet tall, then 100 feet tall.

It needs a more open space, where peregrine falcons, crows, chickadees, bald eagles and other birds can nest and enjoy the views.

Also, one of my favorite sounds is the wind blowing through Ponderosa pine trees, laying on the ground, underneath, closing one’s eyes and just enjoying the hum of the wind blowing past the long pine needles.

I would like to keep the tree close to the building, as I’m very close to my little brother and miss him very much, and the tree reminds me of him every time I see it.

I’m sure he also would appreciate seeing the tree planted across the street, near the water’s edge.

Horseshoe Coins & Antiques’ first day was back on April 15, 1994, and 25 years is coming up – hard to believe.

I will be having a sale, so please come in and take advantage of the many great collectibles and historical items for good prices.

If the city accepts the gift, please have a city employee contact me at 360/332-1870 and maybe we can pick a place in the parklet that we both agree on. I would offer to pay for any transplanting and landscaping costs involved.

Bill Becht

Blaine

The Editor:

All of us in the Blaine school district are thankful for the schools, teachers and administrators in our district schools. We recognize the needs for maintenance and operations within these schools, and want to do what we can to be supportive. However, on the heels of another levy passed in recent months which will also obligate many property owners to pay additional taxes over the next few years related to the functioning of our schools, we are now being asked to approve yet another levy, Prop. 2020-11, which will replace an expiring one. Several hundred dollars in addition to other taxes on property owners will be enacted.

For the many in the district who rent, the vote could be an easy “yes” because the burden falls on others. But for the property owners in the district, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet, and many of whom like ourselves are seniors on fixed and limited incomes, this just adds to an already stressful tax burden for many. We appreciate the work of our school staffs and the district school board. The easy and quick solution to financial needs is to add another levy to property owners in a pattern that seems to become perpetual, for there will always be needs to replace those which are current.

While expressing appreciation for our educators and school board, I would urge the board to spend more time now and in the future wrestling with more creative and fair solutions to financial shortfalls than simply adding another tax on property owners. I would ask them to continue to ask hard questions such as, are there better ways we can eliminate waste and unneeded expenditures? Are there low-priority expenditures that we can allocate to spend only if truly needed? Are there ways we can creatively work with others and involve others in raising shortfalls (e.g. fundraisers, auctions, etc.)? The sum total of the proposed levy appears to be a little over $26,000. Surely other means can be found.

I urge voters to vote no in fairness to property owners and in asking the board to work creatively toward other solutions in the days and years to come.

Larry Eide

Birch Bay

(Ed. Note: The BSD replacement maintenance and operations levy will tax property owners less than the levy it replaces: $1.26 per $1,000 in assessed value in 2021 versus $1.39 in 2020. Also, the sum total of the levy, over four years, is $26.45 million, not $26,000.)